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The new support items applying permanent penalty to CS is detrimental.

cYsmix··5 votes·2,493 views

In the upcoming patch, I couldn't help but notice a new change to the starting support items. Namely:

Anti-Poaching EAT THE RICH: Farming more than 20 CS per 5 minutes (3 out of 10 waves) reduces gold from minions by 50%. The penalty increases with further CS to a max of 80% reduction at 50 minions. MATH: Once the penalty kicks in, your CS gold is reduced to (70 - CS within 5 minutes)%

First of all, I'm a support main. I have my fair share of games where I am the reason the enemy ADC/Support get ahead, due to a miscalculation, gank or mispositioning. That makes me value the role that I have as a support, being able to secure my ADC their farm safely, while trying to set up plays or kills. I am already heavily punished for mistakes, and the rewards I get I share alongside my partner. However, sometimes the ADC doesn't end up getting the kills, I do. And, because of how the power spike snowball works with the current League of Legends balance, that means I am far ahead of their support, neutering their ability to counter my plays. So, it keeps happening. I'll get more kills, get fed, start roaming, having a map-wide impact on the game. I am rewarded for making good calls, and the ADC will as a result have space to continue farming and pushing. Very often, it's also the case of an ADC not being able to fulfill their role as a carry for whatever reason, and me having to capitalize on what little I can do for the team in place of the ADC. What does all of this have in common? It entails me farming creep waves at one point or another. Pushing lanes, ganking, taking farm to secure momentum.

With this new update, you are neutering the possibility of this positive reward system that supports can rely on in these cases. You are limiting their effect to feel like they matter in the bigger picture, and as a support main, I already feel like the most underappreciated role there is. You are lowering the potential cap of performance for supports. I am already behind, having to rely on faith and blind trust alone laning with a complete stranger every game. You should embolden either bot lane player being able to perform well solo as well as a duo, you shouldn't simply remove one part of that equation from the possibility to carry.

Say if I'm a Lux, and the ADC has disconnected? Given up? Started feeding because some random person banned the champion they wanted to play? Am I supposed to stand under tower solo and watch creeps die to tower shots? It doesn't make any sense. Punishing any role for being able to take advantage of one of the absolute core mechanics of your game since day 1 is nonsense and puts it into perspective how far away from a true skill-based game this has gotten. You do not punish supports for taking CS, you make changes elsewhere to make sure to rectify the reason as to why it's gotten to this point in the first place.

This change feels so invalidating. I've already had to put away some of my favourite champions due to the current balance favouring burst champions exclusively, and now I'll have to resign to being a meatshield with some CC on a leash, bound to be ridiculed alongside the ADC if they happen to perform poorly. I really hope you think about this in detail.

16 Comments

ModThe Djinn4 votes

It's not permanent.

MATH: Once the penalty kicks in, your CS gold is reduced to (70 - CS within 5 minutes)%

The reduction value is based on your CS within the past 5 minutes. If you stop farming, your CS within the past 5 minutes drops, and your gold penalty decreases. Or you could sell the item.

Illabethe1 votes

Or just finish the quest and then it all goes away.

ModThe Djinn2 votes

{quoted}

Or just finish the quest and then it all goes away.

That as well!

iiGazeii3 votes

If for some reason you need to farm and carry, sell the support item. Goodbye, CS penalty.

The new support item system saves you 1800 gold, plus 1000 gold from the charges, plus the extra 1 gold per 10. This is a huge buff to every support that is well worth the niche cases where you need to farm more than 30% of the minions.

meowwow72 votes

we still have to purchase the item so 1400 gold, after getting 1k gold from this our gold income shuts off and we back to season 2 gold income

Illabethe1 votes

No. You only pay 450G. The item self upgrades as you finish your quest. For 450g, It's 50 Adaptive stats (more or less) a chunk of HP, Gold regen, etc, and 1000G you would've spent upgrading the item, now free to buy OTHER items.

P.S. If you want to exploit the item and get it hotfixed, you could always sell the Support item and start the quest over for poke gold :S

meowwow71 votes

what i was saying is you still have to pay for gold income so it isn't the full 1800 gold being free. i play tank supports so the adaptive force isn't really going to be useful for me but thanks for the tip on quest resetting

iiGazeii1 votes

That 1400 gold is about 64 procs of the tribute/spoils of war passive. That's over ten minutes of constant proccing after you've already earned the 1000 gold for your income to be less. Further, you get to appreciate the gold savings early on, starting progress on your first "real" item immediately.

Combine that with the fact that the new support items give better stats, and you really have to work hard for there to be a difference in value. It would only matter past the 20 minute mark, and that's only if the extra stats you get from better items and more gold don't net you more kills/assists than you wouldn't have gotten with the old support items.

Arcane Azmadi2 votes

Actually, the new support items give considerably worse stats. The new Spellthief, for example, no longer gives any mana regen, and has nerfed AP in exchange for a truly pathetic pittance of HP. This continues down the line, with the Frostfang and Shard of True Ice similarly having reduced AP and no mana regen, as well as no longer giving any CDR. And keep in mind this is on top of Tribute no longer doing any damage and you losing the active gold generation once you've completed it. So basically most offensive supports are going to be completely neutered in lane by the increased mana problems and reduced damage potential. On the defensive side (Relic Shield et al) you get much less health, again no CDR or HP regen, and you can't heal in lane with Spoils of War, in exchange for a pittance of AP/AD, so you're much, MUCH more vulnerable to poke from the enemy ADC (not the enemy support, of course, because they're as stuffed as you are).

And contrary to what meowwow7 said, we're not going to be back to season 2 income once that happens, because at least in season 2 we still had Philosopher's Stone and Heart of Gold. What are support players supposed to do for income once their support items shuts down and you only have a pitiful +3g/10 to rely on? Farm? Yeah, prepare to get used to your ADC and solo laners raging at you for "taking my farm".

Honestly, I think the best bet would be for a support to buy both their offensive and defensive support item option, but I'm quite sure Riot have coded them to only allow you to buy one. This is gonna be a terrible preseason for supports.

iiGazeii1 votes

Shard of True Ice has nearly double the AP of Remnant of the Watchers.

Arcane Azmadi1 votes

So it does, I read that backwards, since everything ELSE is just straight nerfed. But what of it? 25 AP isn't worth the loss of 50 HP, 50% mana regen, 10% CDR and 18 on-hit damage on Remnant of the Watchers, that's going to have to be made up with items bought with gold taken out of your "savings".

Incidentally, I never bought Remnant/Eye of the Watchers anyway- Eye of Frost was just more cost-efficient (Remnant/Eye only gave some extra HP and an extra ward), so I'm only "saving" 400g rather than 1400. OK, the straight upgrade for free is technically an advantage, but Shard is hardly a "completed item" and the loss of the CDR and MP5 really bites hard. I'm can't help the feeling I'm going to be spending a lot of this "saved" gold on Tears (ironically enough).

I mean let's look at the new items in total: you save 1400g in upgrade costs (or 400g if, as I mentioned, you never upgraded to Remnant/Eye of the Watchers anyway) and you get to earn 1000g from the item before Tribute shuts down. Then after that 2400g (or 1400g) in profit you're coasting on the +3gp10 and whatever stray CS you can scrounge up without the rest of your team biting your head off over it for the rest of the game. That's about enough for an Ardent Censer, a Vision Ward, and a pack of gum.

iiGazeii1 votes

In terms of gold efficiency, 25 AP is worth ~544 gold. The mana regen, CDR, and HP together are worth 646 gold. So a net loss of a little more than 100 gold in stats. Still, chalk that up under the saved gold from not needing to upgrade, and you'll still have a lot more gold to play with. The extra gold per 10 makes up for the lost stats 17 minutes after the first upgrade.

The idea with these changes is to take a power out of the support's early game, and put it into their midgame. They don't have the extra sustain/damage provided by Spoils of Ward/Tribute, and their mana regen is lower, but they'll get to their "real" first item a lot faster. What is effectively an extra 1300 gold in the early game means you will be completing the item you really want in half the time. Between the gold you save, the free gold you earn, and the final upgrade, you get what is about half a fully-built item plus almost enough gold to buy another fully-built support item without needing to get any kills/assists or take any CS.

Your early game will require better resource management, but you can roll into the midgame with two items under your belt virtually guaranteed. That's a huge boost in your impact on a match.

Arcane Azmadi1 votes

You're assuming all stats are created equal. Maybe that's their actual GOLD value, but as far as actual UTILITY value goes, 10% CDR and 50% mana regen is worth far, far more to a support than a mere 25 AP would ever be. Just to take a random example, for Sona that 25 AP is an extra 5 damage on her Power Chord, 12 damage on her Q, 6 HP on her W heal and 8 on her shield, slightly less than 1% MS on her E and 12 damage on her ult. Woo, push that motherfucking boat out, especially considering she now can't cast her abilities since she was already having mana problems in lane even with the 50% mana regen on the old item, meaning she can't even comfortably proc Tribute to transform the fucking thing in the first place!

You are seriously underestimating how big a loss 50% mana regen and 10% CDR is to a lot of supports while massively overrating a bit of AP (a stat supports have never really used much anyway unless they're being very indulgent).

Unfortunately I'm still just theorycrafting here, because when I tried to actually play the game and try out my usual supports to see who is right and who is wrong, I discovered the patch completely broke the fucking game for me and I can't play any more (I even did a full uninstall/reinstall but it's still fucking broken). So I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Metal Janna1 votes

While it was still on the PBE I ran into the CS penalty once. But it was late game and we were pushing into their base at that point (which is why I was farming minions). It doesn't really matter to me if I lose gold income by the time i'm pushing in on the enemy's base.

Illabethe1 votes

I want you to think hard on the current status Quo:

Current Support items: disabled for 15 seconds COMPLETELY from recharging per 1 minion you kill.

PBE support items: Halves + your penalty IF you KEEP farming (and it takes a lot of farm)

Furthermore, all Support gold income is removed from the support item at Tier 3 Irregardless of what you've been farming.

Keep in mind: New Support item does NOT have a CS off champion penalty while it's active; So; Even if you have 80% Penalty to minions, you still gain 15 from champs until the 1000g is complete.

If you farm enough to get 50/80% Penalty, all you have to do is wait a few minutes, only kill a few, and poke champ, and you still gain gold.

I've actually done this playing Senna Top; I only triggered the penalty twice, and still had more gold than a support would. Minions dropped to 7/36 gold, and still got 15 for poking Garen. Once I completed 1000g at about 12 minutes, I had 100% gold from minions again.

It is NOT permanent. It's just a softer version of the penalty we have right now.

Linna Excel1 votes

I think this is to prevent laners from abusing the item for gold. Riot's had too many issues with this in the past not to account for it anymore.

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